Canadian trivia

2008 January 21

Alrighty, I invite all of you to present some obscure piece of Canadian trivia. Here’s mine:

Samuel Hearne walked almost 3,500 miles (“the equivalent of the distance as the crow flies from Gibraltar to Moscow” *****) in almost 19 months (December 7, 1770 – June 29, 1772) from Churchill, Manitoba to the mouth of the Coppermine River, searching for the North-West Passage. * Newman, Peter C., Company of Adventurers (p. 357) Penguin Books, 1985

The reason I posted this is that Friday night I was out with some folks and the question was asked: “When was Louis Riel?” And, of course, I answered, 1870 in Manitoba (which was then the Red River Settlement) and 1885 in Saskatchewan (which was then the North-West Territories). I was asked why I knew that, and my answer was, “Because it’s Canadian history and worth knowing.”